"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwhat car is the most reliable which one's the least reliable and how's Tesla doing those results in a whole lot more from consumer reports and a reliability survey next on talking cars hi and welcome to talking cars with Consumer Reports I'm Tom mler I'm Jake Fisher I'm Anam ah it's fall the leaves are falling from the trees little kids roam your neighborhood threatening you for candy and it's time for the consumer reports annual reliability survey I'm so happy to have Anita here you do a lot of work every year on this survey very smart lady I'm very happy to have you here thank you Tom I'm glad to be back oh excellent thanks a quick side diversion though I want to thank all those people who sent in suggestions to what as to what to name our videos a lot you know there were a lot of common Trends some really unique suggestions we're going to take a look at that and pick a name and we'll let you know well you'll see on YouTube what we pick but you know it's not just naming our videos that our readers and our subscribers help us with explain how this survey works well this is an annual survey so every year we send out a survey to both our magazine and online subscribers asking them about problems they had experienced with their cars in the last 12 months and there are 17 trouble areas that they can check if they have that problem and for on those online they could also answer the details about what exactly what problems they had so you can really subscribers can really drill down and find out what little tiny problems are with the car yes exactly how big is this survey well uh we've been getting around over a million and we still had a million Vehicles this year so with all that what are the problems that new car owners typically have I mean their engines aren't falling out I hope no no the amount of engines falling out was at a minimum this year EXC um but we did find is it's not so much the car it's the computer that they shoehorned into the car and to play my music play my music and all that it's the infotainment screen right I mean every car has got basically an iPad like jammed into the dashboard and the automakers they aren't that good at making iPads so um we found a lot of infotainment problems uh once again it's it's very interesting though because when you start looking at some of the trends you know of course my Ford touch I mean we've heard about that and my Lincoln touch and they were one of the first ones that really had this broad everybody gets an iPad you know everybody gets 2011 widespread application widespread application widespread problems widespread problems but um they have been really actually working on that and every subsequent year they're getting better with those but what's happening now is other Mark automakers are getting into the game and they're stumbling just as much or even more more so yeah you come out with a new system I this is going to be a common Trend through this podcast you come out with something new not too many people can pull that off right off the bat uh and you know you it takes time to work problems out but you know we often get the criticism but okay so my radio doesn't work or my phone doesn't pair that doesn't make the car unreliable but it's it's more complicated than that isn't it yes and actually even if you ignore all these problem that won't get you stranded there are other problem areas talking about new technology for example now that we have the nine-speed automatic transmission and those are problematic as well so every new technology you introduce the car would have to be worked out so often these cars that have infotainment problems even if they never had infotainment problems they often have a bunch of other problems that make them unreliable yes that's correct yeah okay say someone all I wanted to do I want to buy the most reliable car I want what is the most reliable brand the most reliable brand well again it's it's Lexus and it's followed by Toyota LE Toyota and Lexus they're cons consistently putting out very reliable vehicles and what's interesting about Lexus IS you we talk about this infotainment well you know Lexus has been putting in those screens for quite a long time stupid Mouse well and and that you know I'm glad you bring that up because the stupid mouth it's an ergonomic issue it's an issue of being complex or difficult to control it it doesn't break though and that's what our our data shows uh also Toyota had the most reliable new car in our survey what was that yes uh it's the SX speed that's made by Toyota the parent company and they've made that for a thousand years at this point well the latest redesign was what the 2008 maybe and I mean it's not a great car I mean you know it gets 23 mes per gallon there's SUVs that do better than that but they've been building it forever and it just just seems to keep going right reliability and how good the car is in terms of our road test it's completely different thing I mean out here we're at the track we test how that car performs how well that car suits your knees and stuff like that we're not assessing reliability the reliability is completely different piece comes from our subs subscribers comes from the the million vehicles and sometimes you do get vehicles that are very reliable but they're not very good so the XP won't be that good but won't be very good for a very very long time and same with the Yas and and we'll see later on that there are other alternatives to an XB that are a little less reliable but are much nicer cars but we'll get to that in a bit I want to we'll also come back to the Japanese automakers in a bit I think a lot of people want to know how is GM doing you know is the whole new GM thing just a bunch of hype you know they're always in the news with recalls people are probably still bitter about the buyout and all that is there signs of Hope with GM well GM came out a whole bunch of redesigned for 2014 models and some of them uh actually come out reliable is like the uh chevet Impala that we all love and also the Corvette mhm but on the other hand the uh pickup truck the Silverado and the GMC Sierra they are not as lucky they have a whole bunch of uh small problems but that add up to their not being reliable but in the end uh if I remember Cadillac CTS was also a very reliable launch if I remember GM is the most currently the most reliable domestic automaker that's correct and if that reflects a new gym then they are on the right track good I mean to do I mean a car like the Corvette to do a clean sheet design and have that be average in its first year is a pretty neat trick yeah so I mean GM is in the second year of being basally the most reliable uh domestic automaker and that's that's something to be said for and it wasn't that way just a few years ago GM was among the the bottom even among the domestics so I mean they are getting their stuff together um and if you look you know again you look close to like like Anita says it's really that pickup truck that is holding them back um if they get that those problems uh really put to bed you know bad pickup truck bad nice Let It Go Let It Go they'll be hauling there you go they're also helped by Buick aren't they right actually the Buick is the most reliable GM brand all them models are average or better and they ranked among the top 10 brand Brands when we do a brand ranking so if you look at that in perspective so I mean you got Buick in the top 10 but also just GM as a whole we were looking at him and GM on a whole as a manufacturer is ahe of Nissan right now wow we'll get to reasons why why it a bit uh how's Ford I mean Ford used to be the poster child you know Ford used to have terrific reliability and then they introduced a bunch of new cars yeah for Ford's been ups and downs right so Ford go back several years when they had an older product line um they were very reliable then they introduced everything right I mean everything was new new power trins new transmissions new infotainment and they wound up at the bottom of the barrel um there looks like there's a turnaround going on right now and it looks like as we talked before my for touch they seem to be working out some of the Kinks on that it's not the least reliable uh infotainment system some of the other cars are becoming more reliable so you look at the fusion you know here's an entry that you our testing this is a great a great midsize sedan it's a great car to drive we're now recommending every version of it because the reliability has come up right same thing with the Explorer uh it scored a little too low to be recommended but it's a big seller and it's now reliable right and a lot of that has to do with the infotainment system when they launched in uh 2011 they had like 10% problem just in infotainment wow but but this year on the new 2014 models it's now down to four 3% so that is they did a lot of work to improve that I think um Fiat Chrysler Group probably wishes they were doing as well as Ford they're they're kind of having a rough time of it aren't they yeah unfortunately uh Fiat cars are the least reliable surprising yeah the 500 L is our our least reliable car but even that's what the L stands for least reliable wow okay I'm going to let that one go too um I just say loser I that car is um but cars like the new Jeep Cherokee that's parked behind us that that didn't do too well either yeah that was that's the one with the nine-speed auto transmission and the if I remember right the four-cylinder Cherokee is the least reliable small SUV you can buy I mean you know it's funny because Jeep a couple years ago jeep was actually a reliable brand it was doing really well but now you know that was when they built the comp you know they had comp as and patriot who had been around forever they had a couple years of Grand Cherokee that was doing all right but this year they introduced that Cherokee they redesigned Grand Cherokee which was kind of a mess and it really sent them down yeah again it has to do with the infotainment you connect and which is is so easy to use but they kind of have the new Rev Touch system and that caused quite a bit of problems yeah there's a new version of it there's another piece of the puzzle too and like Anita said before even if you start taking out some of these infotainment system problems it's still underlying it it's they're not reliable vehicles and what's interesting about Chrysler is if you go back I mean go back 10 years it it's it's it's it's the partners has changed so much with Chrysler so I mean you go back you know you go back before and they were partnered with mitubishi and they had mitubishi F engines which weren't it's not the best automaker but they made reliable things then they were partners with Mercedes-Benz and they had many platforms that were shared with Mercedes-Benz now these new platforms based on Fiats are even less reliable so it's almost like they're getting least their partners are moving from reliable to not so good to bottom of the barrel and that's what we're seeing with Fiat unfortunately yeah I I am happy to say the Durango is still reliable yes Mercedes-Benz I think it also benefits from having a couple months of Durango always Trails Grand Cherokee so you probably get to work out a couple book right and that brings to the point that you don't totally redesign a vehicle you carry some of the uh Power chains or whatever or you introduce some model slightly later again I don't know whether we want to talk about the Koreans about oh let's go Kia and Hyundai let's talk about Kia and Hyundai yeah that's Kia did very well this year they have had um the Kia Cadenza was brand new and it have above average reliability for the first year Kia so did too which is a far better car than an XB and is a little less reliable but it's a far better car Kia Soul again a redesigned car is above average and the Kia Forte also redesigned is now average but why are they doing better than their corporate cousin Hyundai so you know you look at Hyundai and Kia and you know it's difficult to figure out you know what's the difference between these two companies right I mean yeah they got merged together they're merged together and they're not like you know it's not really clear you know is Hyundai the luxury one is Kia the sporty one H nobody really knows but what's interesting about it is that Hyundai seems to win at getting the vehicles first so it's a new platform designed or something like that Hyundai gets it first and then Kia gets it later but what's strange about it is it's it's totally works for Kia because Hyundai gets to work out the Kinks When Kia gets the the platform The Kinks are worked out and we're seeing consistently Kia is making the more reliable product right because um Hyundai's era came out before Cadenza so you were able to work that out you had you had accent came out before Rio if I remember right so that helped Soul yeah so Elantra yeah Elantra came out before Forte so it all it all works for them uh let's go to the Japanese car companies some Japanese car companies can launch new cars reliably Mazda is doing really well at this um how's you know some new models from Mazda well Mazda redesigned a Mazda 6 in 2014 it's we had some data last year but now it's has more exposure and it still remain very reliable so it's the CX5 the small SUV that introduced and master master yeah now the master 3 did have some problems because they again infotainment system talking about infotainment system system so they introduced this new touch screen on some of the higher trim models yeah that's not not as reliable that's not as reliable but because overall the car is so reliable it didn't drag them down to below average they're still average or better another Japanese company that can launch reliable cars it seems to be Subaru Forester had a pretty good year yep yep Subaru is is very often one of the best performing vehicles and and very reliable Vehicles consistently now there is an exception there is one unreliable Toyota and if I remember correctly one unreliable Subaru and that is the one that they develop together the BRZ and F FRS yes they're getting better but they aren't great right yeah they improve a little bit but still they are still well below average another Japanese company that that actually that had far more troubles is Nissan Nissan really is kind of digging a bit of a hole for themselves it seems here well there's a couple of pieces I mean Nissan has never been one of the the most reliable Brands a lot of their introductions even last year they stumbled with and they had below average reliability um I mean one of the real outliers is what's happening with infinity so I mean other than you know changing all the names so no one really knows what they're buying anymore can't figure it out um you know it was really just amazing looking at we talked about this two in of testing right the G that turned into the Q 3.18 or whatever it is um the Q50 and um this is a car that just went way down in terms of the way the car performed but now we have reliability information and it is really not good and actually when we looked at infotainment system problems in particular they launched with a new system this was the worst we've ever seen I mean it was actually worse than my for touch in its in its introduction year yeah it was it was more than 20% problem oh which is like every yeah one in five owners had a problem with that system go not only is infinity in touch a pain to use but it's it's pain to own it sounds like uh but that's not their only problem right no that's not the only problem they also have uh power steering problems but they also are having problems with the I'm going to get this wrong the JX which turned into the QX60 right that thing is kind of a mess too that's also dropped that was a JX that um that was introduced last year and now they G from average to worse uh it's sort of following the path of the the um Nissan Pathfinder you know Nissan came out with a bunch of new products recently you know you'd go to the you'd go to the um Auto shows and we're going to roll out 300 new products in the next four months and that didn't work out so well for them no no I mean a conservative approach of rolling out products is definitely works better for a lot of different automakers and and you know every time you hit make everything different and try to make all these changes we're just seeing stumbles and especially with an automaker like Nissan which does not have a very good track record of new introductions cuz Pathfinder is bad Ultima is the Ultima is the least reliable put that yeah put that into perspective I mean there's almost every midsize sedan's reliable exactly you can almost that one's reliable but the Ultima is not uh we get a lot of comments on YouTube why is the Ultima bad that's one reason things really not reliable yeah I think they came out with that new transmission that really dragged them down the new CVT CV uh Cent is also yes pretty bad too but the bright spot is the the Nissan Rogue right so that proves they actually could introduce a new product and it does okay but again they did not really change the power chain of that Rog that much now the CVT might have been the new one but they already had inherited from the out you worked out in the yeah what the problems were oh so they did kind of benefit another Japanese luxury brand that isn't doing so well is is Acura Acura has a reputation of being reliable but they're not in their first year um MDX RLX how they dox yeah they are just average yeah you're right the um usually Acro with introduce a model with at least a better than average but this year it was disappointing they have the two new redesign models and they are both only average again that infotainment system comes into play and there's other issues I mean even going back I mean acur have issues with Transmissions so I mean for someone who I know there's many buyers that are looking I'm looking for a luxury make I want something that's really going to be reliable and they're saying okay you know I sort of like the BMWs Mercedes but I'm going to go buy an Acura or buy buy buy a Lexus I think really we're getting to the point where that's not really the advice it's buying a Lexus because there's really a big difference between those two vehicles right you can't just say Japanese as a blanket recommend certainly not Infinity uh surprisingly you could say Audi Audi had a real good year again this is not a just just this year it was last year too I mean we said Audi was the top five of any not automakers but any Brands so um and I think Audi's being helped by the fact it's fairly old lineup you know the A4 has been around forever the q5's been around forever the A6 is like three two or three years old it's only the new A3 and that was too new to have Stu survey information but um you know but again it's two years in a row it's not just not just one one time deal um you know we've seen actually a little bit of a steady in increase of Audi reliability distancing themselves from Volkswagen so I mean even even if you you you consider you know older product and whatnot I mean it's it's it's almost a a Hyundai Kia situation sometimes that platform it first goes out in Volkswagen um or first it actually hits Europe and they actually work out some of the Kinks and when it comes as a as an Audi for our Market it it tends to be pretty good so right and they are pretty conservative as well they only have the Turbo Power trins that supercharged the V6 and they don't have yeah they only have a handful of power trins right they use basically one infotainment system one or two infotainment systems across the board so like BMW they've been able I drive is reliable if I recall correctly Audi's MMI is reliable they've been making this stuff forever Mercedes has not been making some cars forever and what happened to Mercedes now Mercedes at the new entry level CLA sedan and that had a lot of problems in this first year that's just a car to avoid it's not a nice car and it's really it's a very obvious sense of cost cutting it's like okay we want to make a Mercedes-Benz that looks like a Mercedes-Benz the car looks great mhm but it's like they went through that car and they're like let's see where we can save money and oh my God shows and how it performs and now it's showing into how the thing holds up a car where they didn't save any money is the S-Class but I mean that it's a technological tour to force you know what do you let's put every option you could possibly think of in this one car and it's all new and we'll try out all these new technologies and yeah I guess it wasn't a real uh you know you didn't have to guess real a whole lot that there's going to be problems with that car finally to wrap up it doesn't mean all high-tech cars are unreliable let's talk about the Tesla Tesla is um last year it was average um this year there there were some problems with it we saw some problems with our car as well um but it maintains an average reliability rating so we continue to recommend it yeah um our analyst Mel did a he did some clever digging and he found that Tesla massively changed they changed a bunch of parts you know they redesigned a lot of stuff between 12 and 13 as the years go on and we saw that the later cars are getting more reliable because you know our car is an early 13 Edmund's car was I believe a 12 or an early 13 that had major problems and we we're seeing that now right yes the the the ear especially the early introduced 2012 they had a lot more problems including some drive system problems yeah that were that were fixed later on so we've seen those issues and yeah and and to your point when you go on the interwebs you you see a lot of these you know people who were the early adopters and they're having those things and but it's like there seems to be an uptick in in the performance of that and like I said it's there there are least reli less reliable cars and there's more reliable cars but it's it it appears to be maintaining it's holding average yeah and we have, 1300 Tesla owners more than more than that's right that that just blows my mind uh you know we have far more than what we talked about here so check out Consumer Reports online for far more reliability information as always thank you for listening we'll see you next time hewhat car is the most reliable which one's the least reliable and how's Tesla doing those results in a whole lot more from consumer reports and a reliability survey next on talking cars hi and welcome to talking cars with Consumer Reports I'm Tom mler I'm Jake Fisher I'm Anam ah it's fall the leaves are falling from the trees little kids roam your neighborhood threatening you for candy and it's time for the consumer reports annual reliability survey I'm so happy to have Anita here you do a lot of work every year on this survey very smart lady I'm very happy to have you here thank you Tom I'm glad to be back oh excellent thanks a quick side diversion though I want to thank all those people who sent in suggestions to what as to what to name our videos a lot you know there were a lot of common Trends some really unique suggestions we're going to take a look at that and pick a name and we'll let you know well you'll see on YouTube what we pick but you know it's not just naming our videos that our readers and our subscribers help us with explain how this survey works well this is an annual survey so every year we send out a survey to both our magazine and online subscribers asking them about problems they had experienced with their cars in the last 12 months and there are 17 trouble areas that they can check if they have that problem and for on those online they could also answer the details about what exactly what problems they had so you can really subscribers can really drill down and find out what little tiny problems are with the car yes exactly how big is this survey well uh we've been getting around over a million and we still had a million Vehicles this year so with all that what are the problems that new car owners typically have I mean their engines aren't falling out I hope no no the amount of engines falling out was at a minimum this year EXC um but we did find is it's not so much the car it's the computer that they shoehorned into the car and to play my music play my music and all that it's the infotainment screen right I mean every car has got basically an iPad like jammed into the dashboard and the automakers they aren't that good at making iPads so um we found a lot of infotainment problems uh once again it's it's very interesting though because when you start looking at some of the trends you know of course my Ford touch I mean we've heard about that and my Lincoln touch and they were one of the first ones that really had this broad everybody gets an iPad you know everybody gets 2011 widespread application widespread application widespread problems widespread problems but um they have been really actually working on that and every subsequent year they're getting better with those but what's happening now is other Mark automakers are getting into the game and they're stumbling just as much or even more more so yeah you come out with a new system I this is going to be a common Trend through this podcast you come out with something new not too many people can pull that off right off the bat uh and you know you it takes time to work problems out but you know we often get the criticism but okay so my radio doesn't work or my phone doesn't pair that doesn't make the car unreliable but it's it's more complicated than that isn't it yes and actually even if you ignore all these problem that won't get you stranded there are other problem areas talking about new technology for example now that we have the nine-speed automatic transmission and those are problematic as well so every new technology you introduce the car would have to be worked out so often these cars that have infotainment problems even if they never had infotainment problems they often have a bunch of other problems that make them unreliable yes that's correct yeah okay say someone all I wanted to do I want to buy the most reliable car I want what is the most reliable brand the most reliable brand well again it's it's Lexus and it's followed by Toyota LE Toyota and Lexus they're cons consistently putting out very reliable vehicles and what's interesting about Lexus IS you we talk about this infotainment well you know Lexus has been putting in those screens for quite a long time stupid Mouse well and and that you know I'm glad you bring that up because the stupid mouth it's an ergonomic issue it's an issue of being complex or difficult to control it it doesn't break though and that's what our our data shows uh also Toyota had the most reliable new car in our survey what was that yes uh it's the SX speed that's made by Toyota the parent company and they've made that for a thousand years at this point well the latest redesign was what the 2008 maybe and I mean it's not a great car I mean you know it gets 23 mes per gallon there's SUVs that do better than that but they've been building it forever and it just just seems to keep going right reliability and how good the car is in terms of our road test it's completely different thing I mean out here we're at the track we test how that car performs how well that car suits your knees and stuff like that we're not assessing reliability the reliability is completely different piece comes from our subs subscribers comes from the the million vehicles and sometimes you do get vehicles that are very reliable but they're not very good so the XP won't be that good but won't be very good for a very very long time and same with the Yas and and we'll see later on that there are other alternatives to an XB that are a little less reliable but are much nicer cars but we'll get to that in a bit I want to we'll also come back to the Japanese automakers in a bit I think a lot of people want to know how is GM doing you know is the whole new GM thing just a bunch of hype you know they're always in the news with recalls people are probably still bitter about the buyout and all that is there signs of Hope with GM well GM came out a whole bunch of redesigned for 2014 models and some of them uh actually come out reliable is like the uh chevet Impala that we all love and also the Corvette mhm but on the other hand the uh pickup truck the Silverado and the GMC Sierra they are not as lucky they have a whole bunch of uh small problems but that add up to their not being reliable but in the end uh if I remember Cadillac CTS was also a very reliable launch if I remember GM is the most currently the most reliable domestic automaker that's correct and if that reflects a new gym then they are on the right track good I mean to do I mean a car like the Corvette to do a clean sheet design and have that be average in its first year is a pretty neat trick yeah so I mean GM is in the second year of being basally the most reliable uh domestic automaker and that's that's something to be said for and it wasn't that way just a few years ago GM was among the the bottom even among the domestics so I mean they are getting their stuff together um and if you look you know again you look close to like like Anita says it's really that pickup truck that is holding them back um if they get that those problems uh really put to bed you know bad pickup truck bad nice Let It Go Let It Go they'll be hauling there you go they're also helped by Buick aren't they right actually the Buick is the most reliable GM brand all them models are average or better and they ranked among the top 10 brand Brands when we do a brand ranking so if you look at that in perspective so I mean you got Buick in the top 10 but also just GM as a whole we were looking at him and GM on a whole as a manufacturer is ahe of Nissan right now wow we'll get to reasons why why it a bit uh how's Ford I mean Ford used to be the poster child you know Ford used to have terrific reliability and then they introduced a bunch of new cars yeah for Ford's been ups and downs right so Ford go back several years when they had an older product line um they were very reliable then they introduced everything right I mean everything was new new power trins new transmissions new infotainment and they wound up at the bottom of the barrel um there looks like there's a turnaround going on right now and it looks like as we talked before my for touch they seem to be working out some of the Kinks on that it's not the least reliable uh infotainment system some of the other cars are becoming more reliable so you look at the fusion you know here's an entry that you our testing this is a great a great midsize sedan it's a great car to drive we're now recommending every version of it because the reliability has come up right same thing with the Explorer uh it scored a little too low to be recommended but it's a big seller and it's now reliable right and a lot of that has to do with the infotainment system when they launched in uh 2011 they had like 10% problem just in infotainment wow but but this year on the new 2014 models it's now down to four 3% so that is they did a lot of work to improve that I think um Fiat Chrysler Group probably wishes they were doing as well as Ford they're they're kind of having a rough time of it aren't they yeah unfortunately uh Fiat cars are the least reliable surprising yeah the 500 L is our our least reliable car but even that's what the L stands for least reliable wow okay I'm going to let that one go too um I just say loser I that car is um but cars like the new Jeep Cherokee that's parked behind us that that didn't do too well either yeah that was that's the one with the nine-speed auto transmission and the if I remember right the four-cylinder Cherokee is the least reliable small SUV you can buy I mean you know it's funny because Jeep a couple years ago jeep was actually a reliable brand it was doing really well but now you know that was when they built the comp you know they had comp as and patriot who had been around forever they had a couple years of Grand Cherokee that was doing all right but this year they introduced that Cherokee they redesigned Grand Cherokee which was kind of a mess and it really sent them down yeah again it has to do with the infotainment you connect and which is is so easy to use but they kind of have the new Rev Touch system and that caused quite a bit of problems yeah there's a new version of it there's another piece of the puzzle too and like Anita said before even if you start taking out some of these infotainment system problems it's still underlying it it's they're not reliable vehicles and what's interesting about Chrysler is if you go back I mean go back 10 years it it's it's it's it's the partners has changed so much with Chrysler so I mean you go back you know you go back before and they were partnered with mitubishi and they had mitubishi F engines which weren't it's not the best automaker but they made reliable things then they were partners with Mercedes-Benz and they had many platforms that were shared with Mercedes-Benz now these new platforms based on Fiats are even less reliable so it's almost like they're getting least their partners are moving from reliable to not so good to bottom of the barrel and that's what we're seeing with Fiat unfortunately yeah I I am happy to say the Durango is still reliable yes Mercedes-Benz I think it also benefits from having a couple months of Durango always Trails Grand Cherokee so you probably get to work out a couple book right and that brings to the point that you don't totally redesign a vehicle you carry some of the uh Power chains or whatever or you introduce some model slightly later again I don't know whether we want to talk about the Koreans about oh let's go Kia and Hyundai let's talk about Kia and Hyundai yeah that's Kia did very well this year they have had um the Kia Cadenza was brand new and it have above average reliability for the first year Kia so did too which is a far better car than an XB and is a little less reliable but it's a far better car Kia Soul again a redesigned car is above average and the Kia Forte also redesigned is now average but why are they doing better than their corporate cousin Hyundai so you know you look at Hyundai and Kia and you know it's difficult to figure out you know what's the difference between these two companies right I mean yeah they got merged together they're merged together and they're not like you know it's not really clear you know is Hyundai the luxury one is Kia the sporty one H nobody really knows but what's interesting about it is that Hyundai seems to win at getting the vehicles first so it's a new platform designed or something like that Hyundai gets it first and then Kia gets it later but what's strange about it is it's it's totally works for Kia because Hyundai gets to work out the Kinks When Kia gets the the platform The Kinks are worked out and we're seeing consistently Kia is making the more reliable product right because um Hyundai's era came out before Cadenza so you were able to work that out you had you had accent came out before Rio if I remember right so that helped Soul yeah so Elantra yeah Elantra came out before Forte so it all it all works for them uh let's go to the Japanese car companies some Japanese car companies can launch new cars reliably Mazda is doing really well at this um how's you know some new models from Mazda well Mazda redesigned a Mazda 6 in 2014 it's we had some data last year but now it's has more exposure and it still remain very reliable so it's the CX5 the small SUV that introduced and master master yeah now the master 3 did have some problems because they again infotainment system talking about infotainment system system so they introduced this new touch screen on some of the higher trim models yeah that's not not as reliable that's not as reliable but because overall the car is so reliable it didn't drag them down to below average they're still average or better another Japanese company that can launch reliable cars it seems to be Subaru Forester had a pretty good year yep yep Subaru is is very often one of the best performing vehicles and and very reliable Vehicles consistently now there is an exception there is one unreliable Toyota and if I remember correctly one unreliable Subaru and that is the one that they develop together the BRZ and F FRS yes they're getting better but they aren't great right yeah they improve a little bit but still they are still well below average another Japanese company that that actually that had far more troubles is Nissan Nissan really is kind of digging a bit of a hole for themselves it seems here well there's a couple of pieces I mean Nissan has never been one of the the most reliable Brands a lot of their introductions even last year they stumbled with and they had below average reliability um I mean one of the real outliers is what's happening with infinity so I mean other than you know changing all the names so no one really knows what they're buying anymore can't figure it out um you know it was really just amazing looking at we talked about this two in of testing right the G that turned into the Q 3.18 or whatever it is um the Q50 and um this is a car that just went way down in terms of the way the car performed but now we have reliability information and it is really not good and actually when we looked at infotainment system problems in particular they launched with a new system this was the worst we've ever seen I mean it was actually worse than my for touch in its in its introduction year yeah it was it was more than 20% problem oh which is like every yeah one in five owners had a problem with that system go not only is infinity in touch a pain to use but it's it's pain to own it sounds like uh but that's not their only problem right no that's not the only problem they also have uh power steering problems but they also are having problems with the I'm going to get this wrong the JX which turned into the QX60 right that thing is kind of a mess too that's also dropped that was a JX that um that was introduced last year and now they G from average to worse uh it's sort of following the path of the the um Nissan Pathfinder you know Nissan came out with a bunch of new products recently you know you'd go to the you'd go to the um Auto shows and we're going to roll out 300 new products in the next four months and that didn't work out so well for them no no I mean a conservative approach of rolling out products is definitely works better for a lot of different automakers and and you know every time you hit make everything different and try to make all these changes we're just seeing stumbles and especially with an automaker like Nissan which does not have a very good track record of new introductions cuz Pathfinder is bad Ultima is the Ultima is the least reliable put that yeah put that into perspective I mean there's almost every midsize sedan's reliable exactly you can almost that one's reliable but the Ultima is not uh we get a lot of comments on YouTube why is the Ultima bad that's one reason things really not reliable yeah I think they came out with that new transmission that really dragged them down the new CVT CV uh Cent is also yes pretty bad too but the bright spot is the the Nissan Rogue right so that proves they actually could introduce a new product and it does okay but again they did not really change the power chain of that Rog that much now the CVT might have been the new one but they already had inherited from the out you worked out in the yeah what the problems were oh so they did kind of benefit another Japanese luxury brand that isn't doing so well is is Acura Acura has a reputation of being reliable but they're not in their first year um MDX RLX how they dox yeah they are just average yeah you're right the um usually Acro with introduce a model with at least a better than average but this year it was disappointing they have the two new redesign models and they are both only average again that infotainment system comes into play and there's other issues I mean even going back I mean acur have issues with Transmissions so I mean for someone who I know there's many buyers that are looking I'm looking for a luxury make I want something that's really going to be reliable and they're saying okay you know I sort of like the BMWs Mercedes but I'm going to go buy an Acura or buy buy buy a Lexus I think really we're getting to the point where that's not really the advice it's buying a Lexus because there's really a big difference between those two vehicles right you can't just say Japanese as a blanket recommend certainly not Infinity uh surprisingly you could say Audi Audi had a real good year again this is not a just just this year it was last year too I mean we said Audi was the top five of any not automakers but any Brands so um and I think Audi's being helped by the fact it's fairly old lineup you know the A4 has been around forever the q5's been around forever the A6 is like three two or three years old it's only the new A3 and that was too new to have Stu survey information but um you know but again it's two years in a row it's not just not just one one time deal um you know we've seen actually a little bit of a steady in increase of Audi reliability distancing themselves from Volkswagen so I mean even even if you you you consider you know older product and whatnot I mean it's it's it's almost a a Hyundai Kia situation sometimes that platform it first goes out in Volkswagen um or first it actually hits Europe and they actually work out some of the Kinks and when it comes as a as an Audi for our Market it it tends to be pretty good so right and they are pretty conservative as well they only have the Turbo Power trins that supercharged the V6 and they don't have yeah they only have a handful of power trins right they use basically one infotainment system one or two infotainment systems across the board so like BMW they've been able I drive is reliable if I recall correctly Audi's MMI is reliable they've been making this stuff forever Mercedes has not been making some cars forever and what happened to Mercedes now Mercedes at the new entry level CLA sedan and that had a lot of problems in this first year that's just a car to avoid it's not a nice car and it's really it's a very obvious sense of cost cutting it's like okay we want to make a Mercedes-Benz that looks like a Mercedes-Benz the car looks great mhm but it's like they went through that car and they're like let's see where we can save money and oh my God shows and how it performs and now it's showing into how the thing holds up a car where they didn't save any money is the S-Class but I mean that it's a technological tour to force you know what do you let's put every option you could possibly think of in this one car and it's all new and we'll try out all these new technologies and yeah I guess it wasn't a real uh you know you didn't have to guess real a whole lot that there's going to be problems with that car finally to wrap up it doesn't mean all high-tech cars are unreliable let's talk about the Tesla Tesla is um last year it was average um this year there there were some problems with it we saw some problems with our car as well um but it maintains an average reliability rating so we continue to recommend it yeah um our analyst Mel did a he did some clever digging and he found that Tesla massively changed they changed a bunch of parts you know they redesigned a lot of stuff between 12 and 13 as the years go on and we saw that the later cars are getting more reliable because you know our car is an early 13 Edmund's car was I believe a 12 or an early 13 that had major problems and we we're seeing that now right yes the the the ear especially the early introduced 2012 they had a lot more problems including some drive system problems yeah that were that were fixed later on so we've seen those issues and yeah and and to your point when you go on the interwebs you you see a lot of these you know people who were the early adopters and they're having those things and but it's like there seems to be an uptick in in the performance of that and like I said it's there there are least reli less reliable cars and there's more reliable cars but it's it it appears to be maintaining it's holding average yeah and we have, 1300 Tesla owners more than more than that's right that that just blows my mind uh you know we have far more than what we talked about here so check out Consumer Reports online for far more reliability information as always thank you for listening we'll see you next time he\n"